According to the August 20, 2024 U.S. Drought Monitor, moderate to exceptional drought covers 20.1% of the United States including Puerto Rico, an increase from last week’s 18.9%. The worst drought categories (extreme to exceptional drought) increased from 1.0% last week to 1.5%.
A high-pressure ridge continued across the southern Plains during this USDM week (August 14–20), bringing dry and very hot weather, especially to Texas but also extending into the Southwest and the Lower Mississippi Valley. The ridge extended northward, keeping temperatures warmer than normal across western portions of the central and northern Plains. An upper-level trough kept the Far West cooler than normal, while an expansive cold front spread cooler-than-normal temperatures across much of the Midwest to the East Coast. Pacific weather systems moving in the jet-stream flow brought above-normal precipitation to parts of the West Coast, the northern to central Rockies, and parts of the central to northern Plains, the Midwest, and the Northeast.
The rain was frequently hit-or-miss, with large parts of these regions receiving little to no precipitation. Much of the Southwest, as well as the southern Plains to the Southeast, was drier than normal this week. Hawaii continued to be drier than normal this week, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands were wet, and a mixed precipitation anomaly pattern occurred over Alaska. The rain contracted drought and abnormal dryness in parts of the Rockies to the central Plains, as well as in a few parts of the Midwest and the East Coast. But drought or abnormal dryness expanded or intensified in parts of the West that missed out on the precipitation, in Hawaii, in parts of the Great Plains, from the Tennessee Valley to the central Gulf of Mexico coast, and in parts of the Midwest to the central Appalachians.
Nationally, expansion was more than contraction, so the nationwide moderate to exceptional drought area percentage increased this week. Abnormal dryness and drought are currently affecting over 101 million people across the United States including Puerto Rico—about 32.5% of the population.
The full U.S. Drought Monitor weekly update is available from Drought.gov.
In addition to Drought.gov, you can find further information on the current drought on this week’s Drought Monitor update at the National Drought Mitigation Center.
The most recent U.S. Drought Outlook is available from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s World Agriculture Outlook Board also provides information about the drought’s influence on crops and livestock.
For additional drought information, follow #DroughtMonitor on Facebook and X.
